Sunday, September 18, 2011

"There was nobody there for me to look at and say this is unhealthy. I want to be that for a 13-year old girl deciding whether or not to eat dinner, or an 18-year-old girl deciding whether or not to keep her breakfast down." - Demi Lovato

Her "emotional and physical issues" are well-documented, but rather than hide from them, the Disney starlet wants to be a role model because of them.

Say what now?

Demi Lovato, 19, who used to cut herself and who has battled eating disorders, taped an episode of The Ellen DeGeneres Show scheduled to air Tuesday.

She says she wants to be "outspoken" and freely talk about her "issues" because when she grew up, she "was dealing with the pressures to be thin."

"It was the time in the tabloids when very, very skinny girls were on the cover of every magazine, and that's what I was looking up to," she says.

"That's what I had to idolize. I don't want that for young girls."

While she calls her old life a "mess," right now, it is what it is.

In fact, at this point, she's actually grateful for her "meltdown."

"So many things were going great in my life, and then all of a sudden my personal life just went down at crazy speeds," the "Skyscraper" singer says.

"I had a negative breakdown and it changed my life forever."

"But if I hadn’t gone into treatment," she continues, "I don't know if, one, I'd even be sitting here today, [or] two, if I'd even be alive today."

We're so grateful that she is, and hope that young people can take what she says very seriously. It's good that she's up front about her past, don't you think?